Incredible photographs from above Las Vegas make the city look like a giant Monopoly board

In January, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent
Laforet released a collection of aerial
photographs of New York City taken from an open helicopter
door at an astounding 7,500 feet above the ground.

Laforet's newest collection of photographs, titled “AIR: Sin City
10.8K,” show the bright lights of Las Vegas from an even higher
altitude.

It took the helicopter 45 minutes to get to an elevation of
10,800 feet, or 8,799 feet above ground, Laforet explained to
Business Insider. Once they reached the optimal altitude,
Laforet opened the helicopter door, attached to his harness, and
leaned straight down to shoot the images.

“The experience is very similar to jumping out of a plane with a
parachute when you open that door,” Laforet told us. “It’s pretty
harrowing to lean out and start taking pictures, and know that
your harness is going to work."

But once the
door is opened, he is always pleased with what he discovers in
the images.

“What’s
amazing about Las Vegas is how bright it is, and how it’s this
beacon in the middle of absolute nothing,” Laforet said. “It’s
like you’re seeing an island in the middle of a dark ocean. As
you get closer, you can see (since it is a modern city) the
incredible linear nature of all the streets — it looks like this
huge grid. It really looks exactly like a computer chip.”

The central
strip looks like a Monopoly board game, said Laforet. "It looks
like someone picked up little monopoly pieces of the Eiffel Tower
and of these little hotels and placed them down,” he said. “It’s
very surreal to see from the air.”

Laforet used
the same equipment that he shot with in New York (cameras such as
the Canon 1DX and the Mamiya Leaf Credo 50 MP) to capture the
images over Las Vegas.

But because they flew at a much higher altitude this time, the
pilot was required to wear an oxygen mask. Laforet even
reported suffering from hypoxia near the end of the trip, and
said he began to feel confused with high ISO numbers.

He wants the project, which is called "Air," to eventually grow
into a more collaborative series. Laforet will begin
pre-announcing when he will travel to new cities, and hopes that
people will contribute to "Air" by submitting their photographs
and stories to Storehouse.

The full set of Vincents photographs of Las Vegas can be seen on
Storehouse. You can
also follow Vincent’s work on his blog, or visit his website.